I don't know about that scoring 30 yard screamers with bergkamp is great in PES2011, improving player support has been the main thing that's needed improvement over the years and so long as it works as well as it does there they could be onto a winner here.

Wish people would stop moaning about the rigidity and animations. PES will always lack in that category, it doesn't really break the game for me. If I wanted fluidity I'd play FIFA, where aspects such as momentum, body balance and close control are irrelevant.

I'm just pleased they've decided to improve on off the ball runs, player support was seriously flawed in PES 2011.

Looks quite good from that, I really like 2011 but player support was a bit off, so if they have indeed fixed that like he says I'll be happy. New modes and edit options sounds promising too, can't wait to hear more.

Good point on the refs ecu, it's pretty annoying when you get pulled up after you've clearly won the ball. Player switching is also a good shout jamie, seem to have actually noticed it more after the patches, and have had a few players sent off for off the ball challenges when I was just preparing to slide in with one player and the game decides to switch to another who then brings someone down and gets a red.

Partial list of stuff I would like to see back in 2012, taken from PESFan.

Submitted by Basilis

I think that the following things should be added back to the game:

# International Challenge
This mode was one of the few that let the user play in real life situations. It allowed the user to select a National team and try to win the World Cup by qualifying from the continent qualifiers and by winning the main tournament. The user could change the team squad for each of the qualifying matches.

# World Tour
In this mode, the user had to travel around the world facing teams from all continents and completing exciting challenges with the team he selected in the beginning of the tour. Having to complete all 100 challenges surely kept the user interested in the game.

# Scenario
The user had to play a historical match, and he would begin the game from a certain minute trying to complete a certain target. E.g. The user could play the Final of 2005 and try to win the game starting from the 2nd half and being down 3-0.

# Challenge Training
In this mode, the user had to complete challenges on certain things such as dribbling or free kicks. It helped the user master the game controls and learn new tricks and moves such as the chip shot etc.

# Training in Master League
The user had the option to freely train his team in Master League.

# Pes Shop (improved so it includes balls, shoes, kits, stadiums etc)
The user could unlock things with points acquired from playing matches.

# Statistics Pentagon
There was a pentagon for the overall statistics of each player. While I think the new system that shows how good a player is at his position is good, the pentagon could still be there and the number would be displayed only next to the players' name.

# Ability to play as the CPU team in tournaments
The user could set up a tournament with his friends and select his team. But, they also had the option to control the CPU team when one of them was playing against a team not controled by a user. This way, everyone played together without having to wait until the users' teams were to play against each other.

# Effects for certain situations
When a player was injured, there was a bandage on his leg when he was coming back in the game. Also, when there was rain, the shirts and shorts were getting dirty during the game.

# Home & Away matches
In Exhibition mode, the user could play a tie with a team in which the away goals would count.

# Camera Angle selection
The user could select if the camera would tail or not and the angle of the tailing.

# Kit mixing
The user could mix the shorts of the 2nd kit with the shirt of the 1st etc.

# Cup Gallery
Each cup the user has won was displayed in this gallery and the user had the desire to make this gallery full of cups.

# Stadium View
The user could watch all stadiums of the game from different camera angles. The video also provided the user with useful information such as the capacity of the stadium.

# Snow in matches
A nice addition that added variety to the game and that was removed for no specific reason.

# Appearance Settings
The user could choose if a player would wear short or long socks and if he would wear a neckwarmer or not. He could also choose a preset hairstyle for every player.

# Chants in away matches too
Chants were there for away matches too since there are fans who follow their team everywhere.

# Boot editing
The user could edit existing boots and create his own boot designs.

# Outline color in fonts and numbers
There was an option where the user could specify an outline color. That way, numbers and names were easy to see while now, you cannot add e.g. a black or white font on a black-and-white stripes shirt.

# Scorers Information when you press START
The user could see who where the players that scored the goals and the assist players as well when he would press the start button.

# Random Selection Match
Users could play as WE United and PES United. They selected 4 actual teams for each side (e.g Barcelona, Olympiacos, Liverpool and Inter) and their squad of 23 players was randomly selected from these 4 teams. So you could have Nikopolidis in goal, back four of Pique, Puyol, Mellberg and Maicon, etc. You could keep pressing to randomly select a different squad made up of those 4 teams. This mode was the perfect choice for playing with friends in case everyone agreed not to choose big teams like Milan, Real Madrid, Olympiacos, Juventus etc.

# Replay Information
Difficulty and date was included in the replay information.

# Man of the Match and Ratings
In previous versions, after the game has ended, all the players were rated and someone was named Man of the Match and had a star next to his name.

# 6th Difficulty Level
There was a difficulty level that was harder than Top Player.

# Coin Toss
The user could choose in which side of the field his team would play in the 1st half if he had win the coin toss. This could be added back as a cutscene in which the user presses a button to choose the side of the coin and he then selects the side of the field his side will play.

# Referee Selection before matches
The user could select who would be the referee in the match. There were many different referees in the game. If this is added back, each referee should have a different style, being less or more strict depending on the occasion.

# Team Selection screen
The old screen was showing all teams and you could navigate right, left, down or up until you find your team. Now, you can only go right or left which takes a lot more time and is not practical.

Things that were added back in PES 2010:

# Community Mode
The user could create profiles not only for himself but his friends too. Stats were kept for each friend and tournaments could be aranged between friends. There were awards for the best player, the loser of the company etc. This mode was definitely one of the best for playing with friends.

# UEFA Team Ranking in Master League
Just as in Become a Legend, there is a team ranking for Master League too.

# Other B Teams (slots for new teams)
Many slots for new teams are available so the user can create his own teams.

# Manual Keeper
The user has the ability to control the keeper and stop his opponents from scoring.

# Different goal nets at different stadiums
Each stadium has different nets as in real life. Not every net is white.

How would this improve the game:
It will give to the game more variety and it will make it more interesting for the user. In its current condition, the game does not offer to the user a specific target and so the user gets bored of it soon. If those modes are added back, the user will want to unlock all things, to prove he can pass challenges, to see his gallery full of cups and he will have more things to do with the game so he will be able to enjoy it!

Yeah would agree with most of that stuff, used to like Challenge Mode and training in ML (would be great if they combined the two and you could work on training your youngsters and seeing their stats improve that way aswell as during proper matches). Would like to see the return of some of the presentation stuff mentioned there too, snow in matches, the kits getting dirty, kit mixing (would be great for when you play against those daft teams that have similar coloured home and away strips) and being able to select preset hairstyles on created players (I want Frank Lampard's hair in BAL!).

However that tournament CPU thing, while useful, can still be easily replicated without that option, by simply picking more than one team. Me and my mate have done this for years, pick 16 teams each for a World Cup, then divide them up evenly in the groups. South Korea won our last one, which was awesome. Also the pentagon stats thing is still there, it's now a hexagon and is displayed when you click on a player in the formation screen. It is a bit small which makes it hard to compare players in your squad that way, so guess they could make it bigger.

Another I'd add is allowing the ML structure that they took out of 2011 for some reason. I know you can switch teams about in the edit mode using the league structure option, but it's more of a hassle doing it there, and if you save it affects the way teams are displayed in exhibition mode etc., which isn't really ideal.

Sorry, gonna reserve myself a space here to add anything that jumps to mind as I play through PES11 that I'd like to be improved / tinkered with that I'll add to and edit as I go along (there was a guy last year from Konami posted hopefully he'll look and pass feedback on this year?):

- replay playback - a shortcut back to the replay menu of all saved goals rather than back to the main Edit screen. Surely that's a really easy one to address?
- return the replay feature to what it has always been since ISS98 - whoever introduced the new PES11 replay feature needs shooting. Seriously.
- automatic kick-offs: presumably this is a feature for avoiding online time-wasters? It's completely shit in solo play can it be removed??
- throw-ins: space for the receiver is wildly off at times. The CPU appear to have loads of space but you get bugger all space to do 1-2's the vast majority of times.

Trowel wrote:
Cursor switching with the right stick is an interesting development.

This was always the default come back when I moaned about FIFA player switching. But I don't want to play like that (or mainly, can't play like that as I'm a giant spacker), they desperately need to get manual switching back to how it was in PES 1-4. Baffling.

the short passing was fine though hard to master but the through balls are partly automated and it's annoying when they are clearly automated just so your team mate can peel off defenders.
the ai is looking more impressive with all those arrows but i'd like more options on the field to do with the ref. there needs to be a button to allow you to wave play on if a players been downed or annoyingly offside even though they are on the other side of the pitch. my bro like to chop a random teammate to prevent me from breaking the offside trap. while the offisde flag should only go up if that player actually gets anywhere near the ball, it interrupts play too much. i want seabass as a commentator or at least someone who makes sense. kamara is a nutjob but he's actually funny cos you expect him to say stupid things

I think I'd get pretty annoyed after the third tap-in I'd scored in a row being welcomed by "it's unbelievable Jon!!!". Champion and Beglin aren't anything to write home about, but they do a decent job.

I've stuck with Pro Evo over the years but the lack of teams is really starting to get to me, especially as I like to follow the Bundesliga. I bought FIFA 10 which is an utterly insipid game, but getting to pick a wider selection of teams meant I still got some mileage out of it.

I can never get those downloadable patches to work on PS3 either. They're not exactly user-friendly.

They might not be as straightforward as you'd like them to be, but as long as you follow the instructions perfectly they will work. Sure it is a ballache having to copy about 500 individual files, but it's worth it in the end. There are plenty of decent OFs out there with the Bundesliga included, and I'm sure the PS3 players here can point you in the direction of the ones they use.

I'd certainly choose the game I prefer over the teams included, I know it can be annoying not having the teams you want officially licensed, but it's more about the game for me. I don't like that the Prem isn't licensed and as such can't play as my team Liverpool properly, but I made do with playing as other European teams I liked instead until I finally got an OF (and even now I've started a new ML as an already licensed European club). There are some great guys who put a lot of effort into the OFs every year, so tbh so long as you have a USB stick, some basic know how and a bit of patience, then the teams issue becomes a bit moot.

Trent_Steel wrote:
I've stuck with Pro Evo over the years but the lack of teams is really starting to get to me, especially as I like to follow the Bundesliga. I bought FIFA 10 which is an utterly insipid game, but getting to pick a wider selection of teams meant I still got some mileage out of it.

I can never get those downloadable patches to work on PS3 either. They're not exactly user-friendly.

master league is pretty horrible all round when it ocmes to teams and league, it's too artificial and i never seem to get any gratification form winning whatever generic name they've been given

Trent_Steel wrote:
I've stuck with Pro Evo over the years but the lack of teams is really starting to get to me, especially as I like to follow the Bundesliga. I bought FIFA 10 which is an utterly insipid game, but getting to pick a wider selection of teams meant I still got some mileage out of it.

I can never get those downloadable patches to work on PS3 either. They're not exactly user-friendly.

master league is pretty horrible all round when it ocmes to teams and league, it's too artificial and i never seem to get any gratification form winning whatever generic name they've been given

Trent_Steel wrote:
I've stuck with Pro Evo over the years but the lack of teams is really starting to get to me, especially as I like to follow the Bundesliga. I bought FIFA 10 which is an utterly insipid game, but getting to pick a wider selection of teams meant I still got some mileage out of it.

I can never get those downloadable patches to work on PS3 either. They're not exactly user-friendly.

master league is pretty horrible all round when it ocmes to teams and league, it's too artificial and i never seem to get any gratification form winning whatever generic name they've been given

For me thats exactly the reason I didn't get on with the last; the matches lacked the atmosphere and soul that FIFA possess' I still buy them every year to disapointment. This year finger crossed

Really? I find FIFA to be the game that lacks soul and feels artificial for me. I admit that FIFA captures the match atmosphere, especially of English football, better than PES does; the roar of the crowd when you score is great and of course the inclusion of the top teams' realistic grounds always helps. But although the off pitch stuff like that is better, the actual football just feels a bit souless for me, the player likenesses are quite off for the most part and the game just never feels that satisfying to play, it never gets me as emotionally involved as PES does. Not that it's a bad game by any means, it plays a great game of footie which gives a different experience to that of PES and I enjoy playing it with my mate, but I just never feel attached to it and usually end up trading it after a few weeks.

I can kind of see where redrummy is coming from with the artificial nature of the ML, yes in terms of the leagues etc. they don't follow the proper footie calendar and it is incredibly annoying having all those crap made up teams either in the 2nd division, the European competitions, or both. But on the whole I find the mode to be extremely enjoyable still, I find it to be be deeper than the MM in FIFA, again just feel much more attached to what's going on, my team and players and the situation they're in etc. The transfers need some work for 2012 though definitely, both in terms of the inflationary nature of the market and also the CPU to CPU transfers which were generally ridiculous. It's no fun and hardly believable when Shaktar buy half of Barca's team, to use just one of many examples from my ML experiences this year.

For all the style that FIFA does have scoring goals in it and seeing the close up of the players is really depressing and quite scary at times, I still have a horrible image of torres in the world cup game in my mind.

Trent_Steel wrote:
I've stuck with Pro Evo over the years but the lack of teams is really starting to get to me, especially as I like to follow the Bundesliga. I bought FIFA 10 which is an utterly insipid game, but getting to pick a wider selection of teams meant I still got some mileage out of it.

I can never get those downloadable patches to work on PS3 either. They're not exactly user-friendly.

master league is pretty horrible all round when it ocmes to teams and league, it's too artificial and i never seem to get any gratification form winning whatever generic name they've been given

I'm a pretty casual player of PES and installing option files, which basically amounts to copying files from a memory stick to the save directory, took me less than an hour. It's pretty boring but it sure isn't complicated.

It's piss easy on the PC for me. Download file, install file, job done. I even get the choice as to what D2 teams I would like from all the major european leagues. I also get every team in the game in the master league including the south american ones.